Points of Data
by lokis-advocate
Summary: A small scale kidnapping soon becomes serial murders in the town of Ystad. The police do their best to find and protect the victims, but soon the police become the victims.
1. Chapter 1

The first man to be kidnapped was a youth by the name of Johann Christianson.

Christianson was 26, just out of college by two years and had started a new job as a textbook salesman, specializing in marketing. He lived alone in his apartment, and his parents lived on the continent. He had few friends, mostly business associates, and no known enemies.

He was last seen at a pier diner by a few of his colleagues. He'd stayed late at the diner on his laptop, for work, preferring the sound of the ocean to the drone of his air conditioner. None of the waitresses remember seeing him leave, but it was presumed evening when he either departed for home or was taken. None of his belongings were found left at the diner, no calls had been made, and he never made it home.

Christianson was pronounced missing by his colleagues after they hadn't seen or heard from for about two weeks. They stated that the reason they hadn't placed an inquiry previous to that was because he was a man of quiet habits, not going out much and working from his apartment. Christianson has been reportedly missing for almost two months.

The second man to go missing was a man of similar standing; 25 years of age, lived alone near the port, and had a job as a secretary in the local hospital. He was last seen by his neighbor, an old woman, when she'd said goodbye to him during his departure for the grocery store. He never made it to the store, and he never went back home. Jensen Abreham has been missing for about seven weeks.

The police started suspecting serial kidnappings only when a third man, Lars Skold, 27, was reported missing, last seen exiting the bank six and a half weeks ago. He had been staying in a hotel along the pier while he was visiting relatives. It was the day before he would return home to Norway.

* * *

Kurt Wallander sat back in his desk chair with his knuckles to his lips, listening to Martinsson's report on the kidnap victims. His forehead was a maze of worry lines, and the more he listened, the deeper the lines got.

"All young men, all caucasian, all dissappeared from the same area," drawled Martinsson. He pranced around the table, handing out manilla folders to each of the officers. Kurt opened his to see three pictures, one of each man. They looked young and expectant, something Kurt knew he'd never be again. He sighed and flipped through the files; missing reports, inquiries, and entraneous information on the victims.

"Is there anything else that might connect them?" piped up Anne-Britt from her corner. She gesticulated to her open envelope. "Any money, any women? Did any of them go to school together?"

"All of the victims were from different schools in different parts of the country," Martinsson explained, his arms crossed, "and they'd all moved to their current place of residence within the past two years. Not one of them had any girlfriend or equal significant other, and each of them ranked somewhere within the lower middle class. No money, no women, and they hadn't known each other previously, at least not to anyone's knowledge."

The young officer cast his eyes around the table, where the team continued to flip through his report. Nyberg looked up.

"Were these their first jobs?" he asked. "I mean, had they done anything before this? Maybe they'd all worked together in the past, and then broke away to find new careers." The rest of the team nodded distractedly at the posed question. Martinsson sighed and flipped through his folder, which contained files he hadn't bothered to copy for the others.

"I made sure to dig up everything I possibly could, relevant or irrelevant to the case," he explained, "that includes past proffessions. Let's see..." His fingers flitted through several sheets of paper, before he finally found and pulled out three leaves of information. He glanced over them and shook his head.

"Christianson had worked in an automobile repair shop... Abreham in a pizza parlor, and... Skold had lived with his parents. Still no connection."

Kurt ran a hand over his face in contemplation. Why would someone do this; kidnap three totally different men who are almost exactly the same, and for what ulterior motive, if there even was one? Perhaps the kidnapper simply had an affinity for young, white, single males. Had this happened anywhere before? Had any other countires dealt with a similar case? Had anyone checked the CCTV for possible footage of the kidnapper? Could there be more than one person taking these men?

By the time Kurt wondered if he should ask any of these questions out loud, Martinsson had already gone back to his computer, Lisa and Anne-Britt back to their desks, and Nyberg was probably headed back to the mortuary. The detective inspector decided he'd be better off in his own office. He gathered up his folder and headed that direction.


	2. Chapter 2

The little line on the screen blinked. And blinked, and blinked, and blinked. It sat there at the top of the blank document, tauntingly. Kurt Wallander missed the days where all he had to do was write the press statement and someone else would type it; computers were just infuriating. They had always been more Martinsson's forte.

Everyone at the station agreed that it was time to announce to the press that the three kidnappings of the young men were all related somehow; of course, that meant writing the statement and speaking to the press and answering questions and going to interviews, but at least it would get them off of the police's back for a while.

Kurt swore as he smashed the backspace button. He had squiggly red lines underneath at least a fourth of the words in the statement, and he was only a paragraph in. He rubbed his hands over his face and let out a grieving sigh. He needed sleep; he always needed sleep. And proper food. And less alcohol. And to finish the bloody press statement.

He decided he wanted another officer's opinion before he really started and left his office.

Anne-Brit was on the phone; probably with a curious reporter or her husband. It was a shame she was married; Kurt had considered asking her out to dinner a few times before. He looked distractedly around the station for someone else to occupy him and instead headed to the canteen. He needed caffeine anyway.

He rounded the shallow corner and heard Lisa speaking with Martinsson about something. He stopped just short of their line of sight and listened.

"Aren't you worried?" He heard Lisa asking. The young officer laughed and Kurt heard him pouring cream or something into his cup.

"I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself," Martinsson replied. Lisa huffed in stubbornness.

"You're sure? Your apartment is right around those parts. I'd be a lot more careful and stay off the streets at night, if I were you."

"It's fine. I'll take my gun out with me or something."

The conversation seemed to end there, so Kurt stepped out from behind the wall and went over to the communal coffee machine. He was just in time to see Lisa as she was heading elsewhere; she greeted him with a quick "hello" as she passed.

"Any news on the case with the three men?" Kurt asked conversationally as he poured himself a cup of steaming hot shook his head.

"No one's seen or heard anything," the cadet replied, stirring his hot beverage. He leaned casually against the counter. "You should include an appeal in your statement."

Ugh, the statement. He still had that to write. He hated fighting with that infernal computer to get anything done.

"Yeah, I'll put that in. Hey, if I wrote it out, would you mind typing it for me?" Kurt asked quickly. He looked up at Martinsson, who was chuckling into his coffee.

"Sure," he said, standing straight and strolling back to his work station. "Just get it done. Those reporters are like vultures when they have to wait." Kurt smirked at the way the young officer thought he could boss him around like that. He gathered up his coffee and headed back to his own office, where the damn press statement was waiting to be written. At least now he didn't have to worry about that damn computer.

* * *

One a half weeks later, and a convenience store had been robbed. An old lady reported her dog missing. Some kids had found a gun on the pier and were scaring the mailman with it. A car was broken into and nothing was stolen. A drunk man was pulled off of the streets and locked up for the night.

But still no news of the kidnapper.

Kurt had been sure to put in the appeal that if anyone had any information on the whereabouts of the missing men or if they had information they felt was valuable to the case, they should contact the police at once. No one had called; apparently these weren't very popular men.

A meeting was to be held in the conference room to see what the other officers thought needed to be done about the case. Matters like this were usually times-sensitive, but they were getting no where and had no new leads.

"Well, we can't just put it on the shelf," stated Nyberg. "Those men could still be out there. Who knows what the kidnapper is even doing with them?" Kurt shuddered. He hated to think about any reason these men were taken and for what purpose.

"We've sent out search teams. Search dogs, helicopters, we've dragged lakes, we've sent out appeals, we've put adds in newspapers, and still no response," he explained to the table. "Nearly two weeks and we still don't know anything. I'm not saying we have to put it on the shelf. I want ideas as to what we should do." Kurt picked up his folder concerning the case, with it's meager amount of information in it. "Anything new on the men's backgrounds, Magnus?" he asked, not looking up as he leafed through what little they had to go on these mysterious victims.

Silence. Kurt looked up and scanned the table.

"Where's Magnus?"


	3. Chapter 3

Every officer glanced around the table distractedly. Distraction soon turned to concern when they realized that Kurt was right, Magnus wasn't there.

"I don't think he came in today," Lisa said, crossing her arms. "And he hasn't called in." Kurt stared at the table in front of him for a moment.

"Try his cell," he ordered whoever would listen, "and if that doesn't work, then try at home. Call his family, call his physician, whatever. He was susceptible to the kidnappings; we need to know where he is."

The crew at the table split up and each one went to their respective desks. Kurt went to look up any useful numbers back in his office; a family member, a doctor, or something, anything. If the case hadn't been serious before, than it would be now.

He found Martinsson's cellular and dialed it; nothing. He got his home number and tried calling that one; nothing. Kurt slammed the phone down a little too hard on the receiver and sat down in his chair. There was a knock on the door.

"Come in," he mumbled. It was Anne-Britt.

"We rung his mother," she reported, "she hasn't spoken to him in years. She's no help."

"Did anyone get a hold of his physician? Has he gone in sick recently?" He pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. Anne-Britt shook her head.

"There's no doctors on file," she answered, "and he would have called us if he were sick."

"Call the clinics in his immediate area," the inspector said, bringing his hand down on his desk. "Call the hospital and ask if he's went in. I want to know where he is, and if he's gone missing, than this case has just reached a whole new level of importance. It's personal now."

His fellow officer hesitated at the door, giving him a concerned look. She nodded and went back to work, closing the door behind her.

* * *

Martinsson didn't come in the next day. Or the day after that. No one had seen him or had had contact with him for over three days. He was presumed officially missing by the Ystad police force.

A week after he'd gone missing, Kurt Wallander's team put in a warrant to search his apartment.

It was cold and blustering when Kurt leaned against his car in front of Martinsson's apartment block. He watched and stamped his feet as two young officers spoke by their squad car; he wished they'd hurry up. He was cold and he wanted to get this over with quickly. Finally, they had everything sorted out and they could head up to begin the search.

As Kurt stood in front of the door to Martinsson's flat, he was struck by the memory of himself and the same missing young officer in front of Svedberg's door. Svedberg was a good friend and a fellow policeman, and he, too, had been missing for some days. Kurt had found him laying on his couch dead and covered in his own blood. He remembered Martinsson offering to kick the door down.

Kurt picked the lock and the two policemen went inside the dark flat.

"What's your name?" the inspector asked as they stepped over the threshold.

"Sten," the young officer replied after some hesitation.

"Right then, Sten. I want you to be prepared for anything we might find, right?"

Sten nodded and they entered through the narrow hallway into the flat. It was white and gray in color, with windows looking out onto either the grey sky or the building adjacent. Simple furniture, simple furnishings, simple food in the cupboards; nothing out of the ordinary or to suggest that Martinsson was attacked. The officer in question seemed to be missing as well.

Kurt cautiously entered the bedroom and flipped on the light switch. The bed was neatly made and the alarm clock was flashing. Kurt pushed the power button on it and studied the nightstand. A novel, a few papers and a cup of pencils. A sticky notepad was sitting right next to the clock with what looked like reminders scribbled in neat handwriting on it.

It read: "Research victim backgrounds, bring gun to pier, buy milk."

_Bring gun to pier. _Kurt remembered Martinsson saying something about taking his gun out with him at night. Surely he remembered it the night he went missing, so how could he have gotten abducted?

Unless he'd lost his gun...

"I need to make a phone call," he said to Sten as he pushed past him to get to the door. "Keep looking for anything useful." Kurt pulled out his cellular as soon as he was in the hall and dialed the station.

"Ystad police," answered Lisa's voice with the normal sense of urgency.

"It's Wallander. Do you remember that gun that some kids were playing with down by the pier? Did we confiscate it?"

"What? Yes, I think we did. Why? What's this got to do with Martinsson?"

"Identify it. It might be his." Kurt snapped his phone shut and went back into the apartment. "Find anything?"

Sten shook his head. "Nothing except for some notes on the backgrounds of the other victims." Kurt sighed.

"Looks like we need to assign someone to look into Martinsson's background now," he said morosely. He looked up at the younger officer. "We need to make a little trip."

* * *

The pier was void of life that windy day as Kurt's car pulled up in front of an abandoned warehouse, followed closely by the squad car with Sten and the other officer inside it. He drove directly to the spot where the police had found the kids playing with the gun, and immediately started snooping around. Sten and his coworker followed suit.

"What exactly are we looking for?" the young officer asked, bending down to Kurt's level, where the inspector was rifling through some shrubs.

"Anything that might indicate that Martinsson was here recently," replied, Kurt with a grunt as he stood up and surveyed the area. "About two weeks ago, we found some kids playing with a gun around here, and I think it might be his. Who else would leave a fully functional gun just lying on the ground?" Sten nodded. He went off in the opposite direction and pointed his friend to the left. The three men kept on their search.

After about twenty minutes of fruitless scouring the warehouse, Kurt got a call from the station.

"I think your theory was right," said Lisa's voice. "We hadn't really looked at the gun after we'd taken it; just put it in storage. I had Ryberg look it over. It's standard police issue. And it was found over in the pier area."

"Thought so," Kurt grumbled, rubbing his forehead with his free hand. "Hoped it wouldn't be, though." He sighed and closed his phone. Sten came running up to him.

"I think we've found something," he said frantically. He pushed the object he had been holding into Kurt's hands for him to look over. It was an empty belt holster. Kurt turned it over, It was inscribed on the inside with the initials, M.M.


	4. Chapter 4

The station seemed quieter.

It wasn't because Martinsson made a lot of noise necessarily, but the effect of his absence had a great impact on the remaining officers. Kurt seemed to hold himself responsible for the whole ordeal; he kept telling himself that he should have recognized sooner that Magnus was vulnerable to the attacks, should have warned him to take more precautions. Maybe set up a patrol around his neighborhood. He felt that he could have, and should have, done more.

Lisa had Kurt working solely on the Christianson case, as it had been christened based on the first victim. They still had no new leads, and all they had to add to the pile was another victim.

There hung, on the cork board in the conference area, a map of the pier and the surrounding neighborhoods. Anne-Britt had put it together and Magnus had helped her with the pins. Kurt now took a red push-pin from the tin on his desk and traveled out to the map. He considered it for a moment before jabbing the little pin right on top of the warehouse where they'd found the gun and holster. He stared at it for a long time, his hands in his pockets, wondering what would become of this case if they never solved it. The press would probably release some more bullshit about the police being incompetent and selfish again. The families of the victims would file complaints or sue. Ystad would lose one of it's finer officers, maybe forever.

Kurt went back to his office. He knew they needed to get this case over with; now more than ever.

* * *

It wasn't a few days after Kurt had released the official missing reports for all four men. He'd offered them to newspapers, the news stations, the radio, bus stops, and anywhere else you could stick a poster. Information included pictures of the missing men, their heights, age, weight, etc., and the last place they'd been seen.

Thus far they'd received no calls and no leads. It was infuriating; Kurt soon found himself taking more drinks at night than was healthy. This always happened during a stressful case- he'd stay up later, then he'd drink, then he'd hate himself for it the next day, so he'd drink even more. It was a vicious cycle, and it never got him any further in solving anything.

Luckily, something came in. The police station got a call from a concerned civilian who was reporting suspicious activity near the docks. Said they'd seen a strange man carrying a large package to the side of the water and dropping it in. Kurt's team packed up immediately and headed to the specified location.

"Ryberg, you're coming with us," Kurt said to the forensic inspector. "I've got a feeling we'll be needing you."

* * *

As soon as they got there, the police began seining the immediate waters. After about half an hour of watching, Kurt took young Sten and decided to interview the person who'd reported the suspect activity. An old woman by the name of Alma Loken, who lived in a flat a few floors up , facing the sea.

"Kurt Wallander, Ystad police," the inspector said curtly when the frail woman answered the door. She replied with a smile and let them in.

"It was chance that I saw it happen really," Ms. Loken said, going into the kitchen. "I was right in here," she gestured to the kitchen window as she made tea, "just gazing out as I had my night cap. I saw there was a man, down there," she pointed to the area where the rest of the force was still working. "He had something on his back."

"Can you describe the object for us, please?" asked Kurt, nodding his thanks as he got handed the steaming mug of tea. It was hot and it burned his hands, so he set it down on the table in front of him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sten take a polite sip, only to quickly disguise a pained look, like he'd burned his tongue. Ms. Loken saw, but looked away like she hadn't and smiled.

"Of course. It was large, almost as large as he was, and it was black. Well, pretty much everything was black, but I could tell when it was in the water that whatever it was was in a black bag. It looked heavy." The old woman placed a hand on her cheek, looking worried. Kurt sympathized for her; he always felt the most sorry for families and civilians who had to be involved in a case like this. They shouldn't have to be here, worrying over someone else's fate.

"I do hope I'm wrong about all this," she continued. "People are always tossing rubbish in the sea- let's hope that's all this is." The small smile that lit up her face comforted Kurt, which unsettled him. It should be him that's comforting the old woman, not the other way around.

He stood up and nudged Sten to do the same.

"Thank you for your cooperation," he told Ms. Loken, "the police greatly appreciate your help." The two officers departed from the flat.

They'd hardly gained any information from the old woman, other than a description of the mysterious object yet to be found, but they'd been given that hours ago when she's called the station. The bit about her being certain it was a man wasn't helpful either; statistically, it more likely to be a man committing the crimes.

Kurt and Sten exited the building to shouting and scrambling. The two officers hurried over to the edge of the dock, where several policemen were dragging something out of the water. It was big, black, and heavy.

Once it was heaved up onto the platform, the officers took great care in dissecting it. It appeared to be a large black bag, made of some kind of heavy fabric. It was tied shut at the top. Ryberg informed them that whoever dumped the bag in the water, they'd intended for it to sink; it must've caught on a rock or been snagged by a post. They were lucky. Hesitantly, they cut it open. It took a heavy pair of sheers to cut through the cloth.

They instantly regretted it. Kurt covered his nose as the stench of a dead body soon filled the air. Several officers took steps back, except for Ryberg, who came closer. Kurt followed him gravely. As the two men stooped over the body, Ryberg gasped.

"I don't believe it," he said, sounding oddly muted. He rifled through his jacket and handed Kurt a manila folder. He opened it- inside was the files of all of the missing men. Included were pictures. Kurt studied them all with careful detail, then approached the bag.

"I guess we know where Christianson is, then."


	5. Chapter 5

The statement to be released to the press was that the body of Johann Christianson had been found in the harbor, having suffered severe trauma. Severe trauma couldn't begin to describe what Ryberg had written up in his report.

After the body was recovered, it was quickly examined at the scene. There, a team of forensics and Ryberg discovered several wounds inflicted by a blunt instrument of some sort, accompanied by little cuts in all directions on the torso and neck area. The cuts wouldn't be enough to kill, and neither would the beatings.

"Who would do this to somebody?" asked an officer over on the sidelines. Kurt found himself wondering the same thing as he watched the body be transferred to a large black body bag and placed carefully inside an ambulance.

It seemed the woman, Ms. Loken, had come down when she noticed the commotion going on outside. Kurt saw her hobbling along at the edge of the crowd of policemen, her hand on her mouth and her eyes filled with tears. The inspector sighed with resigned sympathy and waved two cadets over to her direction. He watched as they led her back up to her flat, one of them with his hand on her back.

Once back at the station, Ryberg and his team went to work on the body, with Kurt constantly checking for updates. In the meantime, he sat pensively in his office. He didn't want to be out with the other officers, not when the same thing was on everyone's mind.

What if this was Martinsson's fate? What he ended up bloody and bruised and cut, left to sink to the bottom of the ocean? How long would the kidnapper keep the victims before they dumped the bodies? How long did they have to find the rest of the men?

After a few grueling hours, Ryberg came back with a report. Kurt read it solemnly at his desk. From the piece of paper, he read that Christianson had suffered beating from what the forensics theorized was a club or bat, was cut in seemingly random places all over the body, all before he died. The official cause of death was at about 1:45 am that morning, from drowning. So they'd tossed him into the sea when he was still alive.

Kurt furiously shoved the paper away and wiped his hands across his face. This wasn't right. Human being shouldn't do this to each other. It went against every bit of common sense people grew up learning as a child. You'd have to be really messed up mentally to be able to stomach and act like this, let alone carry it out.

The kidnapper(or at very least the torturer) must have some sort of mental disease, Kurt thought. Or perhaps have gone through some sort of brain damaging event. Most serial killers kill because they went through a horrible psychological accident; perhaps that was the case here. Said events tended to be mirrored in how the victims of the killers die. Maybe the kidnapper was near-drowned once. Or cut, or beaten. Maybe they're getting revenge. But why these men? Why this way?

This was too painful to think about. Kurt decided he needed sleep and thought about going home. He still had to type up a press report, though. He groaned. He hated doing those. And now Martinsson wasn't here to type it up for him. He got up to get himself some coffee to get him through the next few hours.

* * *

No one at the station read the papers the next morning. It was all news about the body. Every paper and channel had their own twist on the story; some talked about the possibility of torture, some didn't. Some discussed what "severe trauma" really meant, and what the police was hiding from them.

Kurt stopped to get a coffee on his way to work and he overheard two old women gossiping by the newsstand.

"It's just horrible what happened to that young man."

"Isn't it? I bet he was mixed up in some sort of gang violence. Drugs, most likely."

"The youth today are so reckless; they think they have their whole lives ahead of them, so they waste it on nasty things like narcotics."

Kurt silently agreed with some of what the women were saying; young adults and teenagers nowadays were getting more and more dangerous with gang and drug related felonies. He didn't want to dwell on it any longer, though; he didn't like the thought of associating Martinsson with gangs.

Ryberg was to continue to search the body for clues of any kind while the rest of the team either patrolled the area near the docks or by the warehouse. Lisa had put out an order for a dog team to go out and sniff the areas out.

Kurt opted to stay at the station and dig up whatever more he could find on the victims. He had no idea where to start, so he looked through what Martinsson had already come up with. Essentially, it was everything that had been in the initial envelope with the case report, along with profiles on select family members and a few on some old girlfriends.

Girlfriend.

Kurt closed the file and looked out the window to think. The kidnapper had to have some reason behind why he was doing this. Usually, the reason was the result of a psychological disturbance, or in some cases, revenge. Someone who had been severely wronged in the past might seek out revenge on the one who had done it to them. Or perhaps, someone who fit the close profile.

A scenario formed in Kurt's mind; a woman, head over heals in love with a man, and he leaves. The woman is devestated. She seeks him out, wanting to take out her grief on him, the cause of it, but instead finds men of a similar stature to sate her. She tortures these men on the outside because she feels tortured on the inside.

Kurt calls Lisa and tells her he has a working theory.


End file.
